“As someone who studies shame and scarcity and fear, if you asked me, ‘What is the most terrifying, difficult emotion we experience as humans?,’ I would say joy,” says Brown. “When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding.
Brené Brown: Listening to shame
So what we do in moments of joyfulness is we try to beat vulnerability to the punch … We try to dress-rehearse tragedy.”

In fact, says Brown during the first part of this intervie, fear seems to be an ever-present part of our experience.

“I think there’s a thin film of terror wrapped around us,” says Brown. “If it’s not, ‘I’m not safe enough’ or ‘I’m not secure enough,’ it’s ‘I’m not liked enough,’ ‘I’m not promoted enough,’ ‘I’m not loved enough’ … at the very bottom, ‘I’m not good enough.’”

Photos: James Duncan Davidson Brené Brown is an expert on vulnerability who starts off her talk by describing the extraordinary impact of giving a talk in 2010 at TEDxHouston: The Power of Vulnerability. For starters, she says, the day after giving the talk, she woke up in a state of depression that she’d shared details […]

On this weekend’s episode of Super Soul Sunday, Oprah Winfrey asks TED Books author Pico Iyer to explain more precisely what he means by the word ‘stillness.’ It’s not so much about meditation, he says. “It’s sanity and it’s balance, and it’s a chance to put things in perspective,” he says. Like so many others, […]

Comments (9)

The one thing I need to Vulnerably say is:
When Oprah said “we are Soul-mate”, and later at the end, a “me too”, to caption Brené’s expression, sounded a little fake.
The truth is, I Love Brené Brown. Thanks to OWN.